Is It Still a Boardwalk If the Planks Are Plastic?

Our hearts, rather than our feet, have been burning over the fate of the iconic Coney Island boardwalk. Sure, it’s rickety and splinter-ridden, but a Concretewalk is just wrong. The city has agreed to keep the concrete to a bare minimum, which is still too much, but now it looks like there is no hope for any wood on the boardwalk.

“I have pushed them to look at every possible wood alternative, and they have persuaded me that there aren’t wood alternatives that are practical,” said one commission member, Otis Pratt Pearsall, a trustee of the Brooklyn Museum. With that in mind, he said he would support the hybrid plan because “it is important to have the thing look as Boardwalk-y as possible.”

Another commissioner, Paula Scher, shared that sense of resignation.

“If you think we’re happy that wood is being replaced by material we find less appealing, that is certainly not the case,” said Ms. Scher, a partner at Pentagram Design. “It’s called a Boardwalk, and if you use other material, it loses its identity. I understand that, but it’s so much better to have a surface to walk on next to the beach.

“We love our icons of the past, and sometimes you can preserve them,” Ms. Scher said, but “things have changed.”